Madame Tussauds

My friend Pamela had an extra ticket to Madame Tussauds and asked if I wanted to come along. I didn't realise that Madame Tussauds was a real person, named Marie Grosholtz who lived in France in the late 1700s. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for a physician who taught Marie the art of wax modelling.

Marie was 17 when she made her first wax sculpture, which was of Voltaire in 1777. The London location of Madame Tussauds has that original Voltaire wax sculpture on display. It was really impressive. 

She was hired by the royal family in France to be a live-in artist. She made wax sculptures of each member of the royal family, also on display. Below is a photo of the sculptures of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI. 

During the French Revolution, Madame Tussauds made death masks of those who were executed and even made the death masks of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI. Below is a photo of the actual guillotine blade used to behead Marie Antoinette.

After the French Revolution, Madame Tussauds moved to England. She traveled around the coast for a year and then opened a museum on Baker Street (the current location is also on Baker Street but her original museum location was bombed during the war). Below are some early entry tickets to her museum.

Some of her early wax figures included Benjamin Franklin, Horatio Nelson, Robespierre, and George III. She passed away in 1850 at age 89. 

I found the history of Madame Tussauds fascinating, but I also had a fun time taking photos with the modern wax sculptures. Here I am with Russell Brand. I didn't realise how tall he is in "real life". 

At least Jim Carrey thinks I'm funny. 

To make it look more realistic, I didn't touch any of the sculpture royals since that is not allowed with the real royals.

Ends up I had dressed just like Katniss Everdeen that day! 

I had to take a selfie with London's mayor, Boris Johnson!

As if I needed another photo with Kate Middleton, but since I was there...

Back in October, Pamela and I attended the live filming of the Jonathon Ross Show. One of his guests was Cheryl from the X Factor so we had to take our photo with the sculpture version of her.